US now world’s biggest Bitcoin miner after China ban

The US just overtook China as the world’s biggest source of Bitcoin mining only weeks after Beijing banned it.

According to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance report, China’s share of the global hashrate went down from 44% to zero between May and July.

On the other hand, the US share of the global hashrate grew from 17% in April to 35% in August, while, for example, Kazakhstan rose from 8% to 18% in the same period.

Within the US, around 20% of Bitcoin’s hashrate is in New York, 18.7% in Kentucky, 17.3% is in Georgia, and 14% in Texas, according to Foundry USA – the biggest mining pool in North America and the fifth-largest globally.

When China announced a crackdown on Bitcoin mining and trading in May, citing environmental and financial concerns, many miners fled to the US, neighbouring Kazakhstan or Russia.

Sam Tabar, chief strategy officer at a New York-based Bitcoin miner Bit Digital, described the move as “great mining migration”. His company suspended its operations in China, which it had been winding down since October 2020, after the prohibition.

Texas governor giving support for mining BTC

One of the most popular US states for miners is Texas, whose Governor Greg Abbott has been a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency.

Many Chinese Bitcoin companies have looked to Texas for stability and opportunity. Shenzhen-based firm BIT Mining said it plans to invest $26 million to build a data centre in the state, while Beijing-based Bitmain is expanding its facility in Rockdale.

Michel Rauchs, digital assets lead at the Cambridge tracker, commented that “the effect of the Chinese crackdown is an increased geographic distribution of hashrate across the world”, adding that it could be seen as “a positive development for network security and the decentralised principles of Bitcoin”.

China decided to come out with its own digital currency, which authorities hope to trial at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022.

Fred Thiel, chief executive of Marathon Digital Holdings – a Las Vegas-based crypto mining company – asserted that “the China shutdown has been great for the industry and US miners”.

“Overnight, fewer players were going after the same finite number of coins,” he said.

Approximately 900 Bitcoins are mined every day, and in the period from July to September, Marathon Digital Holdings mined 1,252.4 coins – 91% more than in the previous quarter.

Didar Bekbauov, the co-founder of Xive, an Almaty-based cryptocurrency mining platform, said that “immediately after the ban, Kazakhstan received a lot of mining machines, mostly from Chinese miners who wanted to restart operations as soon as possible”.